For five minutes against Guatemala on Tuesday night the Jurgen Klinsmann era with US Soccer was in danger of ending in ignominy. The US trailed to an early Carlos Ruiz goal and the dream of a seventh World Cup in a row was fading. Two goals from Clint Dempsey and one from Carlo Bocanegra turned the game around and kept the American qualifying hopes alive. Klinsmann still has a lot of work to do to fully convince the fans he is the man for the job. His team looks short on confidence and quality at the back, but it has the attacking talent to score goals. The hexagonal stage will provide a sterner test of his managerial qualities and unless he tightens up his back four, Klinsmann might not lead the USA to Brazil. Once again the mighty England flattered to deceive, this time away to Poland. They stumbled their way to a 1-1 draw that keeps them top of their World Cup qualifying group for now. The English should make it to the finals in Brazil, but anyone who thinks they can win it are delusional. The England team are overhyped and overrated. Only when they accept they are mediocre will England have a chance of advancing past the quarter finals of a major tournament again. That and some penalty practice. The Republic of Ireland showed how far they have fallen with an embarrassing home loss to Germany. Yes, Giovanni Trapattoni has made some selection missteps, but the truth is he has a poor pool of players to choose from. The Irish are devoid of real talent and the days of Paul McGrath, Roy Keane, and Liam Brady pulling on a green shirt are long gone. However, no Irish team should lose 6-1 at home, even if it was to the powerful Germans. Ireland managed to restore some pride a few days later when they won against the Faroe Islands. The result needs to be kept in perspective because the Faroese are one of the worst teams in world football. Trapattoni does not seem to be the man to help develop the next generation of Irish greats. Irish football is at a low point and needs an overhaul if it is ever to get back to the heady days of previous tournaments.

If Ireland are an embarrassment then what are Scotland? They have stumbled from one poor game and campaign to another and are set to miss out on qualifying for the eighth tournament in a row. Scotland have not qualified for a finals since 1998 when they made it to the World Cup in France. The status of the national team in particular and Scottish players in general has never been lower. Craig Levein’s tenure as national team manager may be untenable, but he is not the reason the Scots are bottom of their group. The country is no longer producing world-class talent and Levein has limited options to help take the Scots to the next level. They will remain in the international wilderness until they discover a golden generation. While Scotland and the Republic struggled in their games, Northern Ireland gained a modicum of respect by earning a 1-1 draw away to Portugal. It was a backs against the wall performance full of passion and desire. It was reminiscent of that glorious night in Valencia 30 years ago when a Gerry Armstrong goal helped the North beat Spain in the World Cup Finals. Had England, Scotland or the Republic shown the same attitude and desire they would have earned better results and be on the way to qualifying for Brazil 2014. The Northern Ireland result in Portugal also makes a mockery of the suggestion that the minnow nations should have to pre-qualify for the World Cup qualifying campaign. Northern Ireland, Wales, the Faroe Islands, and the other small nations deserve the right to play at the highest level and compete against teams like Germany, England, and Portugal. Football is the people’s game and the powers that be should never lose sight of that fact.

Manchester United demonstrated at Newcastle United why they are the English Premier League’s most successful team. On the back of a bad home loss to Spurs, United went to the stadium formerly known as St James Park and raced out to a 2-0 lead. Newcastle had their chances, but did not take them while United did a professional job in seeing out the game after adding a third goal. They were not at their best, but their display shows why they should never be written off as potential champions. The Andre Villas-Boas detractors in the media have gone silent on the back of Spurs winning four league games in a row. They were ready to pounce had Spurs slipped up at home to Aston Villa especially with the decision to drop Brad Friedel to the bench for the first time in 310 league games. Spurs comfortably beat Villa 2-0 with the added bonus of a clean sheet for the younger and far superior keeper, Hugo Lloris. Spurs have quietly moved into fifth place, on goal difference behind Everton, due to their second best EPL start in the club’s history. After the international break Spurs face Chelsea at White Hart Lane in a game that will provide an indication of how the season will go for both teams. The press will build the game up and tear down the losing manager, but Villas-Boas has already demonstrated that win or lose, his Spurs side will be a top four contender. In the Aston Villa game Gareth Bale tried to ride a challenge that never came from keeper Brad Guzan. It looked a bad dive no matter what angle it was viewed from. Such dives do the game no favor. The referee should have booked Bale. The Luis Suarez dive for Liverpool against Stoke City was just as bad, if not worse. The Uruguayan has lost all credibility with opposition fans and will lose any benefit of the doubt where officials are concerned. The only way to stomp out blatant diving, or to call it by its real name, cheating, is to punish players retroactively. Bale and Suarez should both be fined and points added to their disciplinary record. It might not have an effect, but we have to start somewhere.

In a week when Celtic restored the reputation of Scottish football with an impressive Champions League victory at Spartak Moscow, their bitter rivals Rangers suffered humiliation at Stirling Albion. Stirling are the worst team in Scottish professional football, sitting bottom of the SFL Third Division, which is really the fourth tier. The 1-0 loss at Albion is arguably the worst in Rangers 140 years, or four month history - depending on how you view the club. Rangers should still win the league and gain promotion to the second division, really the third, but results like Stirling, will serve as a reminder of how far the club has fallen. Celtic fans can only smile. The Classico between Barcelona and Real Madrid lived up to the hype with the two clubs playing out an entertaining 2-2 draw. Madrid were the better team and it was a chance missed for them to close the gap on league leaders Barca. Cristiano Ronaldo showed why he is the second best player in the world, but unfortunately for him Lionel Messi showed why he is better. Real should have won, but Barca and Messi earned their draw. The transcript of the Football Association decision in their case against John Terry does not make for good reading. It paints football in a poor light. More to the fact, it places the captain of Chelsea and the former captain of England in a poor light, if he wasn't there already. He is one of the most unpopular players in English football and this case only adds to his infamy. His apologist Ashley Cole is another despicable footballer who represents all that is wrong with the modern game and his Twitter rant only brings further shame on football. In a perfect world John Terry and Ashley Cole will never play for Chelsea and England again. This is not a perfect world, so I expect Chelsea fans to cheer every touch the two imbeciles make. Chelsea fans and John Terry are made for each other.

Tottenham Hotspur went to Old Trafford at the weekend and recorded their first win there since 1989. It was achieved through an attacking attitude full of pace and skill in the first half and dogged resistance, with a touch of luck, in the second. A lot of praise should go to Spurs’ new manager, Andre Villas-Boas, who set up a team to expose United’s weaknesses. And did they ever. AVB has been ridiculed in the English media since he took over at White Hart Lane, but seven games unbeaten since an opening day loss at Newcastle United shows that the manager has talent. That bastion of journalistic integrity, The Sun, ran a story on Saturday that declared players were in open revolt against the Portuguese manager. The way they played for him against United, and the manner in which they celebrated the win with AVB, should put such lies to bed. They won't of course, but Spurs fans know better, and they are starting to get behind their young manager. After his team’s loss, Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, was quoted as saying, "They gave us four minutes [stoppage time], that's an insult to the game. It denies you a proper chance to win a football match.” Sorry Fergie, your team had 90 minutes to win the game and they failed. What is an insult to the game is when match officials did not see the ball had crossed the line by a yard as it did when Pedro Mendes “scored” at Old Trafford in 2005, or when they award a penalty kick when Heurelho Gomes clearly played the ball and not the player as he did at Old Trafford in 2009. I don’t remember Fergie complaining on either occasion when the decisions helped his team to a draw and a win respectively. The Scotsman is the master of diversion tactics and his broadside at the match officials was calculated to draw attention away from Rio Ferdinand who had a torrid afternoon and was responsible for all three goals.

Celtic carried a similar woeful away record with them as they travelled to Russia to play Spartak Moscow in the Champions League. The Scottish champions had not won an away game in the group stage of Europe’s premier event in their previous 19 attempts. Few gave them any chance of ending that run against the oil rich Russian club. The Scots pulled off a stunning come-from-behind victory to beat Spartak 3-2 and move into second place in the group behind Barcelona. Neil Lennon has been castigated in the recent past by many in the Scottish media. The performances of his young team are making those reporters eat large slices of humble pie. Call me a cynic, but I found it very convenient that John Terry quit the English national team the week before his racism case was to be heard by a FA tribunal. Had Terry not quit, there is a possibility he would have been kicked off the team in disgrace after his guilty verdict. The Terry apologists in the media have been trying to spin things in his favor. Let's be clear, John Terry, as they say in England, has previous. A four game suspension does not seem enough for someone who has constantly brought the game into disrepute. Is there a more despicable footballer in English football right now? With Queens Park Rangers sitting bottom of the EPL with two points from six games it won’t be long before the media are calling for the head of Mark Hughes. The QPR manager will be looking over his shoulder with Harry Redknapp waiting in the wings to take his position. If QPR fail to win at West Brom on Saturday the former Fulham, Man City, and Blackburn manager’s position will become untenable. Blackburn Rovers fans finally got their wish with the forced resignation of despised manager Steve Kean. If there is such a thing as karma, Blackburn will fail to be promoted back to the Premier League.